This is an application for a new SCORE Program at New Mexico State University (NMSU) at Las Cruces. A goal of NMSU is to expand research is at the institution for participation by ethnic minority students who desire to pursue careers in the biomedical science disciplines. The proposed SCORE Program has its goals: (i) To significantly improve the capabilities of NMSU to conduct biomedically relevant research by increasing the numbers of faculty who conduct biomedical research, increasing the inventory of specialized single-user research instrumentation, and improving the capacity to maintain research instrumentation; (ii) To significantly improve the quantity and quality of biomedical research conducted at NMSU by broadening grantsmanship efforts of faculty participants and increasing the numbers and quality of research publications; (iii) To integrate the activities of the SCORE Program with an anticipated RISE Program to maximize resources for training minority scientists in the biomedical sciences by engaging students in SCORE Program research projects; (iv) To increase the capacity of NMSU to self-evaluate, assess, and monitor its multi- component research programs by engaging trained personnel in the SCORE Program's evaluation plan and subjecting the Program to annual review by an external evaluation committee. This application contains research proposals for nineteen research subprojects and three pilot subprojects. Disciplines represented among these proposals include Agronomy, Animal Science, Anthropology, Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Psychology. The research topics of proposed projects include methods for radiolabeling medical diagnostic reagents with technetium and rhenium, avian cardiovascular adaptations, the bacterial proteosome, glycosylation processes in CHO cells, apoptosis, acid tolerance of E. coli O157:h7, metabolic engineering of secondary metabolism, evolution of RNA viruses, cytosolic and chloroplastic glutamine synthase, biological dechlorination reactions, mechanisms of environmental stress resistance, toxicokinetics of swainonine, neuromodulation of growth hormone, maternal/infant synchrony in cortisol and behavior development, embryonic control of blood pressure, modification of clays for resolving racemic mixtures, gene expressions during inner ear development, and chemical synthesis of cation chelators, steroids and etoposide derivatives, and boronated biomolecules. This SCORE Program will continue a 24-year old MBRS Program which has advanced 280 minority students (83% of participants) on to post baccalaureate programs and produced 52 minority Ph.D. recipients since 1974.